Listen, white brother," he replied, sternly. "How has the pale-face repaid his red brother? Like the serpent he spoke with a forked tongue; he stung the bosom that warmed him back to life-his heart was black; he gave strong water to the red man that made him weak and foolish, and when he was drunk with the fire-water the pale-face would buy the red man's country and give him nothing for something. Poggatticut spurns the strong water as he does the fang of the serpent!"

The foiled diplomat bit his lip in intense anger, and for a moment his resentment nearly overmastered his sense of prudence, but conquering his rising passion, he returned to the subject which had brought him many a league into the heart of the wilderness.

"As you will," he returned in a smooth tone; "I have offered the fire-water that makes the heart strong, according to the custom of my people, who, from the earliest times, have quaffed from the lovingcup, as the red man smokes the calumet around the council fire."

He paused, but the dignified Sachem vouchsafed no response to the apology.

"Will the great Sachem of the Manhansetts call together the wise men of his counsellors, that the pale-face brother may smoke with them the calumet, and lay before the council the weighty matter he is here to adjust?" inquired Farret, his eyes hidden beneath the drooping lids, that the Indian might not read their expression.

The Sachem still sat with his glowing eyes fixed upon the downcast face, and remained silent for a space. At length he opened his lips.

"Let my white brother speak with a straight tongue; let him tell his red brother what brought

him here, and why he asks that the Sachem of the Manhansetts should bring his counsellors around the council fire-his red brother will answer. Poggatticut's ears are open.'

Thus adjured, the wily agent felt compelled to speak.

66

Many moons ago the Great Father across the green waters granted to his subjects a tract of land, that they might live among their red brethren in peace and harmony, that they might teach them the arts known among Europeans, and appointed me as their agent, with full power to negotiate for all sales; but the great King of the Manhansetts has never ratified the sale by giving consent; wherefore, I am come, that the title may be confirmed. Then can the pale-faces and their red brothers dwell together in peace and harmony, and to this end have I asked that the council fire may be kindled."

"You have come, as they came to our brothers on the mainland,-the Wampanoags, the Narragansetts and the Pequots, and when the red men had given them a home the pale-face struck them like the rattlesnake; and when they would strike back the pale-face made war upon them, and they, in turn, had to show the sole of the foot in place of the white of the eye. Now, the pale-face has come with his white-winged canoes, bringing from the land of the burning sun the dark-skinned race, and, like them, he would make us his slaves. He has destroyed our forests and driven away the game, and our strong men die as with the plague. Go back over the trail you came, across the green waters to the pale-face chief whom you call the Great Father, and take to him the words of the King of the Manhansetts. Poggatticut is lord of the soil! His hand shall never affix his totem to that which will make

his people slaves, his son a stranger to the burial place of his fathers!"

He turned away, and by an expressive gesture signified that the conference was at an end.

Chagrined and enraged, without a word of farewell to the haughty chief, James Farret plunged into the forest path from which he had emerged, and was quickly lost to sight.

Rising slowly to his feet, and gazing earnestly at the dying god of day, the old Nestor spoke:

Great light of the Great Father, Poggatticut has come to say farewell. The moons of a century have waxed and waned since I first saw thy light, and in all my life you have been my unfailing friend, bringing the seasons of corn and plenty, making the earth in all its fulness glad because you smiled upon it; and when the Storm Spirit was abroad in the air, when the frost and snow came down and the waters were tied with icy hand, when the buffalo and deer had not where to feed, when the Famine Spirit whispered in the night wind, the Great Spirit would send you back to uncover the earth and make it smile and grow green again with abundant harvest, to unlock the waters and make them dance to the song of the happy birds in all the woodlands, and drive the Storm Spirit back to its home under the North Star.

"The Great Spirit has whispered to Poggatticut in the voice of the night wind, and has said, 'Come!'

"The Great Spirit is angry with His red children because we have suffered the pale-faces to take away the land which was the inheritance of our fathers, and as the pale-faces increase, the red man will be driven out and away until he is homeless, and be hunted by the pale-face as a she-wolf.

"The moons of centuries shall come and go

before the Great Spirit's anger shall pass, and He will smile again upon His red children; but when He shall frown upon the pale-face, whose black heart has made Him angry because of his treatment of his red brothers, when the pale-face young warriors are about to fall in war, like the autumn leaves, Manitou shall give a sign. He shall hide His face behind the storm-cloud and shall speak in a voice of thunder, and shall send His lightning to smite this rock,* that shall be my throne no longer. Poggatticut has spoken."

In the summer of 1892 Sunset rock was shivered by lightning, and fell in nine portions. It was named by the Indians "Poggatticut's Throne," and there is a tradition among them that when the rock should be hurled from its foundation a portion of their ancient inheritance would be restored.

CHAPTER II

CALLED BY THE GREAT SPIRIT

"Now they are gone,-gone as the setting blaze
Goes down the west, while night is pressing on,
And with them the old tale of better days,

And trophies of remembered power are gone."

W

ITHIN a commodious wigwam of oblong form, fully thirty feet in length and twenty in breadth, a strange scene was transpiring.

It was the midnight hour by the solemn moon which rode high in the heavens, dimming the fainter light of the stars studding the blue firmament like myriads of diamond points.

Without the lodge was the white lustre of a May night, within the gloom of the Death Angel's wing; for, upon a couch of bear-skins, piled high, the aged chieftain of the Manhansetts lay, silent and motionless, his fast-glazing eyes fixed upon the face of a young warrior standing beside the entrance from which the matting that served as a door was drawn aside to admit the cool night breeze.

It was apparent that the impending blow had struck deep in the heart of Yo-kee; although he was exercising all the fortitude of a red man to control any exhibition of weakness.

Poggatticut lay upon his death couch, his limbs had lost the power of motion, even his lips were rigid, his jaws set.

Beside the couch, hovering over the dying, was a